October 05, 2010

Guantanamo prisoner seeking legal action on CIA torture in Poland from IRNA on 23 September 2010

Berlin, Sept 22, IRNA - A prisoner at the notorious US detention camp on Guantanamo Bay is seeking legal action for his mistreatment at an alleged secret jail in Poland, news reports said here Wednesday.

Lawyers for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have asked Polish prosecutors to investigate the case.
The legal team have urged an inquiry and prosecution of those involved in Nashiri's 'transfer, detention and torture on Polish soil.'

They also want to cross-examine Polish officials and witnesses. The lawyers allege al-Nashiri was detained and tortured sometime between 2002 and 2006 in the secret prison in northeastern Poland. Al-Nashiri is the first victim of the CIA program to take legal action, they said in a statement on Tuesday.

'We hope that the prosecutor will heed this call for a serious investigation into al-Nashiri's ill-treatment,' said Amrit Singh, senior legal officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative.

'The quest for accountability for the CIA's illegal rendition program must continue in Europe, especially as US courts appear to be closing their doors to victims of this program.'
Flight logs obtained from Polish officials earlier this year confirm that CIA planes landed in Poland during 2003, in what human rights activists suspect were rendition-linked flights.

The logs indicated CIA-chartered planes landed in the Polish town of Szymany at least six times in 2003. Polish authorities have repeatedly denied claims that CIA prisons were
based on their territory. Prosecutors have been probing the allegations since 2008, but have yet to release their findings.

International human rights groups have accused Poland and Romania of tolerating secret CIA jails where alleged terror suspects were interrogated and tortured.

Based on a report by the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, the existence of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe had been proven. Marty's 100-page report said the prisons were operated exclusively by Americans in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2006.
The report relied primarily on testimony from CIA operatives.

A staunch political ally of the US, Poland has strongly denied the charges.